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first; and the other companies would adopt similar prices. This pattern of behavior,
        In price leadership, one firm sets its price
                                       in which one company tacitly sets prices for the industry as a whole, is known as
        first, and other firms then follow.
                                       price leadership.
        Firms that have a tacit understanding not to
                                          Interestingly, firms that have a tacit agreement not to compete on price often en-
        compete on price often engage in intense
                                       gage in vigorous  nonprice competition—adding new features to their products,
        nonprice competition, using advertising
                                       spending large sums on ads that proclaim the inferiority of their rivals’ offerings, and
        and other means to try to increase their sales.
                                       so on.
                                          Perhaps the best way to understand the mix of cooperation and competition in
                                       such industries is with a political analogy. During the long Cold War between the
                                       United States and the Soviet Union, the two countries engaged in intense rivalry
                                       for global influence. They not only provided financial and military aid to their
                                       allies; they sometimes supported forces trying to overthrow governments allied
                                       with their rival (as the Soviet Union did in Vietnam in the 1960s and early 1970s,
                                       and as the United States did in Afghanistan from 1979 until the collapse of the
                                       Soviet Union in 1991). They even sent their own soldiers to support allied govern-
                                       ments against rebels (as the United States did in Vietnam and the Soviet Union
                                       did in Afghanistan). But they did not get into direct military confrontations with
                                       each other; open warfare between the two superpowers was regarded by both as too
                                       dangerous—and tacitly avoided.
                                          Price wars aren’t as serious as shooting wars, but the principle is the same.


                                       How Important Is Oligopoly?

                                       We have seen that, across industries, oligopoly is far more common than either per-
                                       fect competition or monopoly. When we try to analyze oligopoly, the economist’s
                                       usual way of thinking—asking how self-interested individuals would behave, then
                                       analyzing their interaction—does not work as well as we might hope because we do
                                       not know whether rival firms will engage in noncooperative behavior or manage to
                                       engage in some kind of collusion. Given the prevalence of oligopoly, then, is the
                                       analysis we developed in earlier modules, which was based on perfect competition,
                                       still useful?
                                          The conclusion of the great majority of economists is yes. For one thing, important
                                       parts of the economy are fairly well described by perfect competition. And even though
                                       many industries are oligopolistic, in many cases the limits to collusion keep prices rela-
                                       tively close to marginal costs—in other words, the industry behaves “almost” as if it
                                       were perfectly competitive.
                                                            It is also true that predictions from supply and demand
                                                         analysis are often valid for oligopolies. For example, we saw
                                                         that price controls will produce shortages. Strictly speaking,
                                                         this conclusion is certain only for perfectly competitive indus-
                                                         tries. But in the 1970s, when the U.S. government imposed
                                                         price controls on the definitely oligopolistic oil industry,
                                                         the result was indeed to produce shortages and lines at the
                                                         gas pumps.
                                                            So how important is it to take account of oligopoly? Most
                                                         economists adopt a pragmatic approach. As we have seen here,
                                                         the analysis of oligopoly is far more difficult and messy than
                                                         that of perfect competition; so in situations where they do
        AP Photo                                         not expect the complications associated with oligopoly to be
                                                         crucial, economists prefer to adopt the working assumption of
                                                         perfectly competitive markets. They always keep in mind the
        Cars line up for gasoline in 1973 after the
        U.S. government imposed price controls.  possibility that oligopoly might be important; they recognize that there are impor-
                                       tant issues, from antitrust policies to price wars, that make trying to understand oli-
                                       gopolistic behavior crucial.




        656   section 12      Market Structures: Imperfect Competition
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